Commemoration of the Tlatelolco Massacre (1968)

This is Mexico’s Kent State…only with the complicity and strategic forethought of the President/s office.

In 1968 just 10 days before the Olympics in Mexico City, the active student movement held a rally in Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. There had been ongoing unrest in the student population with the Federal Mexican Government suppressing human rights and the tension was rising as the government prepared for the Olympics.

Hundreds of students and bystanders were shot and many died. Only 45 have been clearly identified although there are hundreds of students still “missing.” There were over 13,000 people arrested.

Military went door to door looking for students. Bump trucks loaded bodies from the square and disposed of them.

While the government and the Mexican Media claimed that the students provoked the attack, President Fox’s 2002 investigation revealed that it was Presidential snipers that initially shot fellow military and into the crowd to enrage the Mexican Military to act on the students. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz was then president but it was Luis Echeverría Álvarez, the Interior Minister that was eventually identified as the point man for the incident. Echeverría became president in 1970 just two years after the massacre.

After the Fox investigation Echeverría was charged but eventually released because of statue of limitations. He is still alive.